Guest Movie Review: Splice – reviewed by ediFanoB

07Jun

This post was a pure case of serendipity. 🙂

I was contacted last week by Ali Cutting from Formula PR Inc; Ali sent me an interesting link, an article over at Hollywood.com that focused on Cinema’s Worst Five Experiments in Science Fiction. With the new SF movie, Splice, doing the rounds, it would indeed be interesting to see if it turned out as one of those ‘worst’ experiments.

So I checked out some info about the movie and found some really interesting articles; I just had a slight problem – I couldn’t exactly do a post about a movie I hadn’t watched, and when I saw ediFanoB say on Twitter that he had just watched Splice, and immedietley asked him if he would mind doing a guest review. That way, you’d at least get a review of Splice from a blogger we all like and trust, and I’d be able to include the links I had found, all of which I’ll give you after ediFanoB’s review of the movie.

But sometimes I surprise myself. I watched SPLICE (details follow) in the cinema and Dave asked me if I would like to write a guest movie-review. I’m open-minded but always short of time. Anyway this my review of SPLICE (2009), directed by Vincenzo Natali, produced by Steve Hoban and Guillermo Del Toro, starring Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chanéac [Source].IMDb plot summary:

“Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named “Dren”, the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators – only to have that bond turn deadly”
SPLICE is tagged as a science fiction horror movie. Science fiction? I’m far beyond to be sure about that. Nobody knows what is going on the laboratories of the world….”

But it is much more than a simple science fiction horror movie. It is a story about responsibility, parenthood, trust, abuse, emotions, control and profit. It is also a movie which deserved to be longer in order to give more space for all the different layers of the story.

It is a movie which gives the thoughtfulness partially away in order to satisfy horror fans with a bloody and partially abstruse final.
It is definitely no movie for plain joy and entertainment because SPLICE forces you to THINK. To think about your own ethical values. To think about your responsibility.

The actors – Adrien Brody as Clive and Sarah Polley as Elsa – did a great job. You believe them, everything from their self-conception as brilliant scientists over their self-reflection about responsibility to their behavior as “parents”. Absolutely brilliant.

But there is one more, the secret star of the movie, Delphine Chanéac, who plays the creature, Dren. Of course Dren haves been created by using CGI. And the result is awesome. But director Nataly made a wise decision. Gestures and facial expressions are performed by Delphine Chanéac. And what an actor she is!! She gives Dren so much humanity, which express the atrocious moments the more.

Splice is a movie for people who want to get to know how nerds in a laboratory cope with responsibility, parenthood, trust, abuse, emotions, control and profit. And it is a movie which force you to think about the question: SHALL WE PLAY “GOD”?

3 responses to “Guest Movie Review: Splice – reviewed by ediFanoB”

Dave, thank you for asking me. I was a pleasure. Once again I would like to say that it really depends on your point of view whether you like the movie or not. Even with the “bloody” end (a tribute to the horror fans) it was a thoughtful movie.